Mmmm. The air is intoxicating right now with the heady fragrance of flowering trees and bushes. Between the lilacs, the honeysuckle, the flowering pear trees, the cherry and apple blossoms, and many more perfectly perfumed petals, I am in springtime heaven!
I purposely waited for now to focus on flowers and flower reproduction in our biology studies. At the end of our ecology unit we spent some time specifically on bees in general and also on what is happening to them ecologically speaking. It was timed to flow into flowers and pollination.
For this topic, I highly, highly, highly recommend watching Disneynature's Wings of Life! Someone has put a slightly altered, misnamed, and perhaps pirated copy on Youtube that you can watch for free (see below) but after watching that version I loved it so much I had to purchase it. (Bonus: as of the date of this post, the multi-format is 43% off at Amazon!)
Before diagramming the parts of a flower, I gathered several different flowers from my yard to dissect and inspect.
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We went on a walkabout looking for pollen, pollinators, and to again identify pistils and stamens on flowers in various stages of life.
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| Pollen! |
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| More pollen on the stamens and a fertilized pistil. |
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| We could observe the bee's pollen sacs on her legs. |
Happy spring homeschooling!
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